The production of ice for consumer consumption is a major industry. Consumers require ice for drinks, ice chests, refrigeration, medical reasons, for equipment, for recreation, and a large variety of other purposes. Typical ice production requires the use of an ice maker and the bagging of the made ice. The bags of ice are then stacked into a freezer and can be retrieved from the freezer by consumers or sellers.
In the retail business, many times the bags of ice are delivered to the stores by refrigerated vehicles. A freezer, located at the retail business, will store the bags of ice for distribution. Hence, these prior art devices require that the ice maker and the dispenser (freezer) be separate. The separation of the ice maker and freezer leads to many problems including, but not limited to transportation, inadequate inventory (shortages), noncontrolable delivery schedules, temperature control issues, and the like.
Some prior art devices have attempted to locate the ice maker and the dispenser in one unit located at the retail site. However, these prior art devices have problems. For instance, if the device is in a retail establishment and the device develops a problem, the employees of the retail establishment may have no expertise in repairing the device. These devices are usually large and cumbersome and have an abundance of technical issues that are not conducive to on-site repair. Additionally, these prior art devices have been unreliable in attempts to automate the process due to the numerous cooperating components. Some of the deficiencies surrounding prior art require a measuring device to properly fill the bags of ice, requiring an auger to move the ice into a fill hopper, and involving a complicated electronic operation system that does not function properly and is outdated. These machines cannot be monitored for proper operation and accountability. Therefore, there is a need for a device that can produce and dispense the ice in a single unit using a minimal amount of space in the retail establishment's location. There is also a need for an apparatus that can operate autonomously. Additionally, there is a need for a device that will collect information regarding the production of ice, and reliably store and report that information to a remote location. These needs, as well as many others, will be met by embodiments of the herein described apparatus. In one embodiment, the present apparatus overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages and meets the recognized need for such a device by providing an ice bagging apparatus and method that provides an establishment with the ability to automatically and expeditiously produce, bag, and store bags of ice, thus maintaining a desired supply of bagged ice by eliminating conventional method of manual ice bagging, packaged ice deliveries, and reducing the likelihood of unwanted inventory shortages and sanitary concerns.
The above mentioned and other objects and advantages of the present apparatus, and a better understanding of the principles and details of the present apparatus, will be evident from the following description taken in conjunction with the appended drawings.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present apparatus, which may be embodied in various forms. It is to be understood that in some instances, various aspects of the apparatus may be shown exaggerated, reduced or enlarged, or otherwise distorted to facilitate an understanding of the present apparatus.
Detailed descriptions of the embodiments are provided herein, as well as, a mode of carrying out and employing embodiments of the present apparatus. It is to be understood, however, that the present apparatus may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but rather as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to employ the present apparatus in virtually any appropriately detailed system, structure, or manner. The practice of the present apparatus is illustrated by the following examples which are deemed illustrative of both the process taught by the present apparatus and of the product and article of manufacture made in accordance with the present apparatus and should not be viewed as a limitation thereof. The components of the apparatus can be reduced in size and modularized to allow for most any application throughout the retail store, resort and/or marina areas and other businesses. It is also important to note that any one sensor in this application can serve multiple functions, such as, but not limited to, sensing temperature, item location, or status of motor operation. It should be noted that ice bagging machine, which is the subject of the present invention, may be constructed so that six modular units are present; thus an embodiment can comprise a modular hopper, modular funnel, modular bag feed, modular blower, modular drop mechanism, and modular control box. It should be noted that one of ordinary skill in the art could readily see how the various modular units could be further reduced in size and/or, increased in size and/or number, or rearranged in differing positions yet still be covered by the present inventive apparatus. It should also be noted that any number of the modular units could be recombined and restructured in such a way so that any one modular unit may be combined with any other modular unit such that in one embodiment the ice bagging machine could be composed of only one unit. The modular subcomponents of the inventive apparatus are further illustrated in FIGS. 14-17.